Recording the history of King James

December 2021

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Mrs Varley has a long standing connection to King James as a student, teacher and governor.

This week, Mrs Elizabeth Varley, our Chair of Governors, has been interviewed on film as part of a short documentary film about the history of King James I Academy.

Mrs Varley is in a unique position to be an interviewee; not only was she a student at King James herself when it was a grammar school, but she was also a teacher for many years before retiring and becoming a Governor.

Sixth Form student, Jack L who is producing the documentary as part of his Media Studies coursework, was fascinated to hear Mrs Varley's stories of school life, which was very different to that of today. Prospective students had to pass a very challenging test to be able to attend the school at all and Initially, boys and girls were educated separately. She also talked about the many changes she had seen to the buildings. For example, not many people know that despite being an excellent architectural match, our current Art block was not part of the original Middle School building, and that it was added at a later date to house a school swimming pool!

Jack is now busy editing his footage and adding music and voiceover, and we are looking forward to seeing the finished product.